The Fountain Of St James Court

When writer Kathryn Callaghan finishes her novel about painter Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun, a French Revolution survivor, she has a hard time leaving the eighteenth-century European world she has researched and returning to her own American life of 2012.

"From the critically acclaimed bestselling author of Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance comes a new novel, The Fountain of St. James court or Portrait of the artist as an old woman."--

New York Times bestselling author Sena Jeter Naslund explores the artistic processes and lives of creative women in her groundbreaking literary opus The Fountain of St. James Court; or Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman. Sena Jeter Naslund's inspiring novel-within-a-novel depicts the lives of both a fictional contemporary writer and a historic painter whose works now hang in the great museums of Europe and America. The story opens at midnight beside a beautifully illumined fountain of Venus Rising from the Sea. Kathryn Callaghan has just finished her novel about painter Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun, a survivor of the French Revolution hated for her sympathetic portraits of Marie Antoinette. Though still haunted by the story she has written, Kathryn must leave the eighteenth-century European world she has researched and made vivid in order to return to her own life as an American in 2012. Naslund's spellbinding new novel presents the reader with an alternate version of The Artist: a woman of age who has created for herself, against enormous odds, a fulfilling life of thoroughly realized achievement.

A forty-five-square-block neighborhood in the heart of Kentucky’s largest city, Old Louisville is among the largest and most significant historic preservation districts in America. Comprising some 1,400 structures built primarily between 1885 and 1905, it is a veritable time capsule of late-Victorian and early twentieth-century architecture. The broad avenues and quiet courts of this beautifully embowered space are lined with notable examples of Gothic Revival, Richardsonian Romanesque, Queen Anne, Italianate, Châteauesque, Second Empire, and Beaux Arts dwellings typifying the style and elegance of the Gilded Age. Located just south of Louisville’s business district, Old Louisville arose from the expansive grounds where the great Southern Exposition amazed and inspired visitors from 1883 to 1887. Coinciding with the economic growth of this expanding river city, the development of Old Louisville reflected the exuberance of its patrons and their architects as many of the designs combined various elements of diverse styles with sometimes whimsical and often strikingly delightful results. Old Louisville: Exuberant, Elegant, and Alive takes an intimate tour of fifty residential designs, from grand mansions to cozy cottages, from familiar house museums and boutique hotel adaptations to private homes of charm and sophistication. Many of these residences havenever been opened to the curious eyes of readers who are fascinated with old homes and interior design and intrigued by the skill and imagination necessary to rescue endangered buildings and convert them to the needs and comforts of modern living. Old Louisville is alive today with the busy activities of commerce and creativity. It is abuzz with people heading off to work at an office downtown or to a studio downstairs, while next door or down the block new neighbors are hunkering down to restore an old gem from a bygone era. Street fairs and art festivals roll with the vitality of contemporary life in a historic setting, and the pleasant sounds of Derby party celebrants mingle with the echoes of those now past. Old Louisville celebrates the architectural context of this remarkable neighborhood and commemorates the passion and the dedication of those who have recognized the value of its past and have sacrificed to preserve the certainty of its future.

An engaging and enchanting journey into a world of letters that will inspire and edify all those who love writing. Jerome Groopman, MD, Recanati Professor, Harvard Medical School, coauthor with Dr. Pamela Hartzband, "Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What is Right for You." Beverly Mayne Kienzle grew up surrounded by papers and manuscripts containing the remarkable writings of her grandmother Virginia Cary Hudson Cleveland, still unpublished at her death in 1954. Beverly's mother, Virginia Cleveland Mayne, devoted herself to publishing those works. That manuscript, O Ye Jigs and Juleps!, sold for $2.50 and made its firstof sixty-sixappearances on the New York Times Best Sellers list on May 27, 1962, and three other books followed. Kienzle now returns to her roots and tells the story her mother started but never finished, the biography of Virginia Cary Hudson, a "girl who grew up preaching." In this authoritative biography, Virginia Cary Hudson, Kienzle recounts the career and family life of Virginia Cary Hudson. With warmth and humor, she reveals her grandmother's incisive observations of humankind, from simple folk to big-time gamblers, in places from Kentucky to Havana and Las Vegas. The letters and the scrapbook Beverly's grandmother completed for her, with its charming poems and drawings, appear in print for the first time, as does the narrative that Beverly's mother began in order to tell the poignant story of publishing a best seller.

A paranormal investigator and Old Louisville resident explores chilling reports of hauntings among the historic homes of the National Preservation District. The Louisville, Kentucky, neighborhood known as Old Louisville is one of the country’s largest National Preservation Districts and the largest Victorian-era neighborhood in the country. Beneath the balconies and terraces of the district's Gothic, Queen Anne, and Beaux Arts mansions, current residents trade stories about the strange and unexplained phenomena they encounter in their historic homes. When David Dominé moved into one of these houses, he dismissed local rumors of a resident poltergeist named Lucy. But soon, disembodied footsteps and mysterious odors changed his mind. Now Dominé is one of Louisville’s best-known investigators of paranormal phenomena. In Phantoms of Old Louisville, Dominé recounts a horrifying encounter at the Spalding Mansion and the long history of the kindly spirit Avery, who guards the iconic Pink Palace. These tales of things that go bump in the night not only reveal why Old Louisville is considered the "most haunted neighborhood in America," but also help to preserve this historically and architecturally significant community.

This is a book that champions older women’s stories and challenges the limiting outcomes we seem to hold for them. The Book of Old Ladies introduces readers to thirty stories featuring fictional “women of a certain age” who increasingly become their truest selves. Their stories will entertain and provide insight into the stories we tell ourselves about the limits and opportunities of aging. A celebration of women who push back against the limiting stereotypes regarding older women’s possibility, The Book of Old Ladies is a book lover’s guide to approaching old age and dealing with its losses while still embracing beauty, creativity, connection, and wonder.

With more than 1,800 entries, The Encyclopedia of Louisville is the ultimate reference for Kentucky's largest city. For more than 125 years, the world's attention has turned to Louisville for the annual running of the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May. Louisville Slugger bats still reign supreme in major league baseball. The city was also the birthplace of the famed Hot Brown and Benedictine spread, and the cheeseburger made its debut at Kaelin's Restaurant on Newburg Road in 1934. The "Happy Birthday" had its origins in the Louisville kindergarten class of sisters Mildred Jane Hill and Patty Smith Hill. Named for King Louis XVI of France in appreciation for his assistance during the Revolutionary War, Louisville was founded by George Rogers Clark in 1778. The city has been home to a number of men and women who changed the face of American history. President Zachary Taylor was reared in surrounding Jefferson County, and two U.S. Supreme Court Justices were from the city proper. Second Lt. F. Scott Fitzgerald, stationed at Camp Zachary Taylor during World War I, frequented the bar in the famous Seelbach Hotel, immortalized in The Great Gatsby. Muhammad Ali was born in Louisville and won six Golden Gloves tournaments in Kentucky.